How to Starve Religion and Feed Life

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The sun is making my computer screen hard to see as I sit here at our patio table in the backyard. I feel good, especially good, since I had a run of several days last week when I didn’t feel well. I was not suffering from anything physical and, as far as I know, I am in pretty condition for the condition I am in. Yet, something was amiss. It was a weird nebulous feeling of moderate depression that I couldn’t turn around until the end of the week.

Was it the cool, cloudy weather we had last week? Was it being weary of book editing? Was the fear that the book is almost ready to be published and I was about to be exposed to the whole world? Was it the concern this new business will be another fail? Was it the drudgery of the mundane stuff that had to be done? Was the minimal contact I had with other human beings for a few days running? Was it all of the above compounded through all of years of my life?

I don’t know. I just know the last few days have been non spectacular, but totally enjoyable. The beach and my bicycle restored me. Dinner with my wife at our favorite Friday Fish Fry place, a little neighbor bar that only opens the dining room on Fridays was serious fun. Visiting with our new friends at the fabulous Harbor Market and stopping in at our granddaughter’s for a little family dinner and backyard fire pit action on Saturday somehow made me feel human again.

I am the kind of guy to bury myself in something and only rarely come up for air. I know it is no way to live because eventually I get burned out, feel desperate and just want to escape.

My inner dis-ease of last week and the joy of this weekend caused me to reflect on the finally decided upon subtitle for my book, An Irreligious Faith: How to Starve Religion and Feed Life. By the way, I can’t take credit for it. It was my editor’s idea. She’s a smart person and I am going with it.

Since I have spent most of my life feeding religion (along with an overgrown sense of responsibility and guilt) and starving life, I am in need of a total rehabilitation. I learned how to please others and how to feel guilty when I didn’t quite meet expectations, but I didn’t learn how to maintain my own soul.

That’s something nobody else can do it for us and it is our primary responsibility. It’s not selfish in the least, because if we can’t take of ourselves, we will never be able help other people.

So, I have been thinking about feeding life a lot lately. You might give it a try. Make a list of things that feed your life. There is a direct connection between receiving love and blessings and being about to give them to others.

About Glenn

Glenn Hager is a blogger, former newspaper columnist, and author of two books, An Irreligious Faith and Free Range Faith.
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2 Comments

  1. I am glad to read that you are feeling good and emerging from your “weird nebulous feeling of moderate depression”. Welcome back!

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